Chapter 7: Investigations

Indoor cricket was good; it was his dad's work team, and for this weekend they were a player short. Chris hadn't played it very often, and he was reminded that it was quite a bit different to proper cricket. Indoor cricket is quick and dirty, in contrast to the technique and patience his coach had been working on with him for a couple of months. It was nice to spend some time with his dad though. They partnered each other, and other than Chris running into his dad once they did okay.

Afterwards they went into the bar at the indoor sports place, and his dad bought him a beer. He stood at the bar listening to them talk and sipping his beer — trying not to grimace. He hadn't had a lot of beer, and hadn't really acquired the taste for it, but he'd never let his dad's work mates — or his mates — know that. Still, it was a real compliment from his dad, something that would never have happened the year before, he knew.

When they got home, he shut himself in his room and got his list out. He looked at the last point, that Shahia's parents weren't around. He got out another piece of paper and wrote down a list of all the reasons he could think of for why Shahia wouldn't have parents.

- She ran away

- She got thrown out of home

- Her parents are overseas (business / holiday / deported)

- They are in jail

- They're dead

He looked at the list for a while, and then added one more:

- They're spies and they got caught

He tapped his pen on the paper, thinking. He couldn't think of anything else. Could he cross any of them off? Shahia had family, family for which she was responsible. He'd seen a baby. And there were probably other children too. She had run away with her siblings? — No. He crossed that off, and also that she had got kicked out of home. Not with a baby too. He crossed off that her parents were overseas for a holiday or business too. He just couldn't believe that any parents would choose to be overseas and leave their family — especially a baby — behind for months, especially struggling like she had been.

That left the things they wouldn't have any control over, jail, deportation, or dead. He crossed off that they were spies. He'd known that one was stupid as soon as he wrote it down. After some thought, Chris turned to his computer and brought up Google's Australian page, and searched for her surname.

There weren't many hits, less than a page of them, and he started searching through them. The first few were about an Iranian rock star. Momentarily diverted, Chris followed a link to YouTube that showed one of his videos. For a little while, he watched it, thinking that the music wasn't bad. Then the fellow started singing, and Chris couldn't hit the stop button fast enough: it was that reedy shaky middle-eastern singing. Still, he'd better not show his parents, they might play it on the main TV just to pull his leg.

The next link was more interesting. A "Hassan Esfahani-Baracat" had operated an import/export business from Melbourne. There was a link to his company's web page, but it no longer existed. The date on the reference was mid-2006. Chris made a note of this. Maybe this was her dad? An idle thought struck him. Esfahani-Baracat. Did that mean that her father's name was just Esfahani? He did a new search on Hassan Esfahani, and got a series of hits on what was obviously the same man, including a low resolution photo of a middle-eastern man with a huge moustache. Any links he found pointed back to that same defunct web page. Searching for the company name generated thousands of hits, and he trawled through them for a while without finding anything new. Eventually he tired of this, and closed everything down, going back to his first search.

The last link on the first search was a link to The Age, the Melbourne daily newspaper. As soon as he started to read the article he knew that his search was over, and a cold feeling crept into his stomach.

It was just a short newspaper article, dated 21^st November 2006. Not long after midnight a couple of nights before that date, a couple had crashed their car into a railing on the Eastern freeway. Both of them had died on impact. The police believed that there had been another car involved, and were appealing for witnesses to come forward. The police released the couple's names as Hassan and Georgette Esfahani-Baracat. The police denied that racism had been a factor in the incident.

Chris sat there for a while, frozen in place, with tears streaming down his face. There was the answer to what had happened to Shahia's parents. He felt sick inside. He tried to imagine his own parents dying, and then having to look after Jay and Bec. A cold shiver ran up his spine, even though he knew he couldn't really imagine it. All of a sudden Shahia's face came into his mind. He remembered her stone face as the kids at school made fun of her lunch, or made fun of her, and imagined her wearing that same stony look at her parent's funeral. It was too much, and he folded in on himself, collapsing onto the desk, sobbing.

Eventually he pulled himself together and sat up. He turned back to the computer and read the article again. The police denied that racism had been a factor? Why do that? It almost proved that it had been.

He heard a noise from his door, and turned to look. His mum was standing in the doorway, with a concerned look on her face. He wondered how long she'd been there; he hadn't heard the door open.

"Are you okay?"

Normally Chris would've been really embarrassed to have been caught crying, especially by his mum, but not this time; he just pointed to the computer screen. His mum came over and quickly read the article. He moved over on his chair, knowing that she'd want to sit down. She did, and then gave him a big hug. "Oh, Chris, that's horrible." She was visibly upset too.

"So, now we know."

Chris nodded. He pulled out his list, crossed out that Shahia's parents were not around, and wrote instead:

- Shahia's parents died in an accident November 20, 2006. Racism?

He looked at his list again, and shuddered. He felt like such a schmuck. He'd thought that he had problems, but they just paled into insignificance compared to Shahia's problems.

He turned back to his mum. "Why..."

She put her hand on his shoulder. "Chris, stop. I know it's important, but there's no hurry. You need to back off, before you wind yourself into oblivion. I want you to go out for a long, hard bike ride, and then we need to talk to Bec at tea time."

"Bec? Bec!"

"Yes, you'll see. Now, off you go."

"Stay off the roads!" she called to him as he went out the door. She was right. He was still shaking a bit, and he decided that it might be wise to stick to the bike paths. Once he was on the paths he opened it out and rode as hard as he could. He made it all the way into the centre of the city, over an hour's ride, before even slowing down.